


Numb

by Rahn (Rahndom)



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 16:06:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rahndom/pseuds/Rahn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the 2013 Angst War. </p><p>Jason Todd makes a mistake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Numb

It happens so fast that no he isn’t sure he can actually pinpoint the moment it actually did happen.

He is surrounded by thugs with guns and the air rings with the maniacal cackle of Black Mask’s laughter, the flashing of bullets as they broke through the air almost blinding as he scatters to find a vantage point to shoot the assholes to death.

All the children inside the brothel have been evacuated already and are now awaiting for Robin to lead them to safety.

No one messes with children in his turf.

No one, especially, fucks children.

That’s a fast ticket to hell.

There is a crack of static in his ear that signals the arrival of a second channel in his comm frequency and suddenly there is the soft whispers that once made him see red in fury and now only serve to sooth his frayed nerves with fond recognition.

‘ _Red, do you copy? I’m a few feet away, please tell me you are not hit?’_  Tim’s voice is cool, disinterested, business as usual, yet Jason has grown used to his baby bird enough to hear the almost not-there hint of frantic worry that is hidden under all the ice.

“Untouchable and immortal as always, Baby Bird,” he laughs. “Though a hand would be awesome.”

A bullet grazes his helmet, not enough to hurt him, but enough to make that horrible squeaky noise of metal against metal.

He hates that noise.

There is not much for him to do but to charge then, running as fast as he can for the feeble cover some abandoned barrels can offer while shooting at anything that moves, indiscriminative, wild.

The way he has always fought.

His ears are still ringing and the shower of bodies that falls before him is a blessed sight considering these are all child molesters and perverts, the worst type of men possible.

They all fall before him like crash dummies, bodies heaping in unnatural, limp positions.

He cackles back, enjoying the carnage the best he can while awaiting for Tim’s graceful support.

Not that he seems he will need it, of course.

He makes it to the barrels just in time to hear Black Mask order a massive retreat, his voice high-pitched in the ensuing hysteria.

He continues to laugh as he fires shot after shot, hitting all the cowards running.

This is the life, he thinks, he never wants it to end.

“Hey! Baby Bird!” he calls, opening frequency. “Seems like I don’t need your hand after all! They are leaving! This Bats will catch them while I clean up a little?”

He waits for a reply as the debris and smoke start to clear away, silence enveloping the gruesome scene of his newest victory.

He places a hand to his still ringing ear.

“Baby Bird?” he asks again. “You can sulk all you want back at base?”

Static.

“Red Robin?”

More static, silence.

Silence.

A crack.

 _‘Red Hood?’_ another voice calls, this one hesitant, echoing doubly in his ear and the hollowness of the warehouse.

“Big Bird!” Jason calls, scowling when Nightwing drops onto the place from the ceiling. “Came in to get some credit?”

“I was actually following Red Robin,” the older man says, shaking his head at the carnage. Well, fuck you very much, Dick. “We were supposed to patrol Crime Alley tonight but he suddenly took off.”

“He was on his way to give me a hand, as usual,” Jason shrugs, removing his helmet with a careless movement and scratching the back of his sweaty head with the barrel of his gun. “Turns out I didn’t need his help as much as I first though.”

Dick wrinkles his nose.

“I see…”

“Nightwing, stop wasting our time with Hood and Red and let us depart,” Robin’s own annoying voice calls as the child makes his way over the corpses and debris. His whole posture one of non-amusement. “Let the two buffoons fix this mess while we make sure the police takes the children aw-“

Something cuts Robin’s usual scornful tirade and freezes his small body by the entrance in ways neither Dick nor Jason have ever seen.

Dick grows worried.

Jason raises an eyebrow.

Robin pokes at something with his foot, his movement efficient in removing a corpse, pulling at its arm with a swift kick.

“Robin?” Dick calls, confused.

Damian remains silent, allowing himself to fall to his knees as he starts pulling arms and legs from a specific spot, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip as he does so.

Jason feels instantly uncomfortable with the procession of goody-good bat-boys that are now littering his turf.

He opens his mouth to tell them to fuck off when he sees something he has never seen before.

Something he thought he would never see in his life.

Robin’s body lurches backwards, his hand flying to his mouth as his traitorous lips still release a frightened cry.

Dick is at his side in seconds – of course, the baby bat is the favorite, he deserves all the cuddles he can get – and on his knees even before he can reach the child.

Jason blinks when Dick screams himself, his own hands reaching into the little pile of corpses Damian has pulled aside, practically falling over it in his rush to pull something, anything up.

He reappears with Red Robin’s… Tim’s limp body.

Jason feels his vision whiten before his eyes, the world narrow into a single slit.

The light fade until the only single spark of color is the fading pink of his lover’s slack lips as they are caressed by Dick’s trembling hands.

No.

Damian crawls once more towards them, his own shivering limbs remove the cowl that Tim has jealously worn since the day the old golden R was taken from him to reveal the face Jason has caressed every single night.

No.

Tim’s eyes are open, the pale blue now a deadly cold color that radiates no light.

No.

A single bullet hole rests on Tim’s pale forehead, staining his skin with the deep ruby red of the dead.

Dick calls Tim’s name, shakes his small shoulders, checks for a pulse, for any sign of life.

Damian can’t tear his eyes away from the bullet hole, of the irrefutable proof of the truth.

Jason can’t move a single muscle, his own teal eyes locked with Tim’s cold ones.

Tim’s pale, dead ones.

No.

No no no no no.

As Batman appears from the shadows, alerted by Nightwing’s desperate cries and Damian’s shocked mumbles, Jason feels all strength fail him, all energy be leeched from his body.

Darkness envelops him.

.

..

…

….

He wakes up with a sudden lurch of energy, only to find his body is not responding as he would want to and is literally paralyzed with pain until he lays back down on the soft bed.

He is at the Manor.

In his old room to be precise.

Everything is a s he left it almost ten years ago.

Hell, even his ridiculous Superman posters, colors faded by sunlight and age, are still sticking to the ornate wallpaper where he placed them as a child.

Bruce is sitting by the windowsill, eyes dim, pale, lost on the outside setting sun.

He seems old, to Jason, powerless and tired.

“What happened,” he asks, his voice hoarse.

The man turns to him, dark circles under his eyes making his face look yellow-ish, sick.

He feels something tighten inside his chest.

“You were also hit at the warehouse,” he explains, his voice muted, nothing compared to the powerful growl Jason grew used to. “You’ve been unconscious for a month.”

Jason nods as much as his stiff neck allows him to.

He opens his mouth to tell Bruce about the nightmare he just had, about the horrible dream he experienced and to ask whether Baby Bird will be joining him for a while before patrol, but Bruce is not over, his massive hand reaches for the curtains, calloused knuckles caressing the soft fabric as they slide over.

“We held the funeral three weeks ago,” he says, his voice growing muted, broken. “As soon as you are strong enough to walk I will take you to see the grave. It’s just besides your own gravestone. He would have liked that.”

Grave?

Funeral?

His body grows cold.

No.

Before he knows it he is in Bruce’s embrace, the man having moved from his uncomfortable chair and over to his bed, his strong arms enveloping him like a trembling, insecure blanket, his hand pushing his head to rest on one muscled shoulder.

He then realizes he is shaking himself, that his throat is making the most unusual choking noise and that his eyes are wet.

He is crying.

Tim is dead.

Nothing seems to penetrate those two facts.

“Someone grabbed him from behind as he entered the warehouse,” Bruce is whispering, his own voice unsteady, vibrating. “They used him as a shield.”

No wonder Robin found him buried under so many bodies.

No wonder he was so far away, so silent and still.

No wonder.

Tim is dead.

He continues to cry until his protest with pain inside his ribcage, until his eyes are so swollen he cannot open them any longer, his body curling into a little ball on the bed that trembles and heaves even as he feels Bruce’s hands on his hair, on his back, on his skin.

Even when he can’t sob anymore, even when he can’t cry anymore, there are tears sliding pass his eyelids and down his cheeks.

The world has lost all color, all meaning to him.

Tim is dead.

Tim died by his own gun.

He doesn’t deserve to live.

.

..

…

….

…..

Days pass in a blur of physical therapy, medicine and bandages.

Dick stops by his room every single day, eyes guarded, dead – not as dead as Tim’s not as frozen or as beautiful as Tim’s – and he just… stares.

He never says a word, never touches him.

He just stands there, looking at him as if he doesn’t recognize him.

Jason doesn’t feel like himself either.

He can see Damian walk by his door every morning at dawn, never stopping to even look at him. He doesn’t talk all that much except with Bruce and sometimes Alfred manages to pull a soft ‘thank you’ out of him.

The house is silent in ways Jason has never felt them.

Alfred himself moves like a ghost over the hallways, he cleans his room, opens the curtains every morning, closes them every night, he brings him breakfast, lunch and dinner, helps him eat and cleans him up when he is done.

Helps him bathe when he starts to smell.

He never, however, looks at him in the eye.

Jason knows he deserves it.

He can’t even make himself feel hurt.

Once he feels strong enough to move, he slips out of bed, knowing everyone is still sleeping, crawling on his hands and feet and only stopping when he gets so dizzy he feels like passing out but only long enough to make sure he can continue before keeping his way.

He feels the grass, wet with the morning dew, staining his pajama pants, the air cold and almost stale seems like a fitting environment for him to move around.

In front of him lay a beautiful field of flowers, all arranged in colors, their aroma clogging his panting mouth.

There are roses which are obviously Alfred’s and sunflowers that seem freshly ripped from the ground – he guesses the Titans brought those – and also violets and carnations, daisies and lilies. A rainbow of colors that cheerfully proclaim love and care he couldn’t think possible until this day.

In the middle of it all lays a simple black tombstone.

**_Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne.  
Beloved son, brother and friend._ **

**_“Love were the wings in which he flew.”_ **

Jason reaches with a tired hand, his trembling fingers caress the inscription, his mouth whispers the words once, twice, three times and more. Over and over until they are a second nature to him.

Tim was sixteen.

Tim was only sixteen years old.

Tim is dead.

His lungs are protesting again, the stitches on his side snapped half-way out of the Manor and are bleeding all over the place, his heart is beating violently inside his chest.

It’s autumn, he realizes as the first rays of sun hit his face, just before he allows himself to fall face first on the ground, his forehead staining in mud.

Jason closes his eyes, feeling his body growing cold.

Numb.

He whispers Tim’s name like a mantra, a sacred prayer to whatever higher being actually exists.

His own declaration of devotion.

Tim is dead.

He killed him.

There is no mercy for him.

No glory or forgiveness.

He closes his eyes. 


End file.
